I'd say the desire to build empires is a far more dominant part of human history than fights for independence.
As for novelty, apart from drawing parallels to the establishment of the US, consider also the African Union.
The African Union includes every country on the African continent - 55 of them (as of Morocco joining/rejoining in January), and includes far more people, and is on a course towards similar levels of integration, with several free trade areas established and gradually coalescing, and several monetary unions being used to gradually pare down the number of currencies with the goal of a single African currency.
It has a long way to go to reach EU level integration, but considering how bad their starting point was (starting, in the form of the OAU with a continent that still had numerous wars and civil wars and independence struggles), what they've achieved is quite impressive.
>I'd say the desire to build empires is a far more dominant part of human history than fights for independence.
Explaining the state of the EU to any politician in the 1940s, the 1840s, or the 1740s would assume Germany is positioning to make a financial conquest of the entire continent.
It's really not. The American states were a loosely organized confederacy at outset as well. India has multiple languages. And of course the long history of empires, like the Ottoman, or Spanish control of Latin America. Yes they rise and fall, but often over the course of centuries and well out of the observational abilities of the human lifespan. There's nothing inevitable about the EU, in either direction.
During WW1 and WW2, some countries (France and the UK) pooled their resources so they could fight together better.
Then a few years after the war, the European Coal and Steel Community was created to regulate coal and steel in six countries under a single authority. Including West Germany, which had only been formed from the occupied territories a year before. It was certainly not unrelated to military force.
Its initial aims included making war between member states impossible, and eventual democratic unification of all of Europe. The later institutions up to the EU grew out of it.
So although it was completely peaceful, it's still an outcome of WW2.
> Membership in it is purely voluntary. This makes it quite unique.
NATO arose from the ashes of conflict but membership is entirely voluntary, and unlike leaving the EU there is no talk of 'punishing' those who no longer wish to remain.
For example France left the NATO integrated military structure in 1996 and rejoined in 2009 without penalty.
To be more precise: in 1966, France left indeed the integrated military structure, but it did not left NATO itself which is also a political structure. The goal of de Gaulle was to have all French troups under only French command (and not US or UK who were leading nearly everything then in NATO) and to have all foreign military bases leave France, so that France regains its full sovereignty. De Gaulle was very critical of the US wars led at the time actually and he wanted to have Europe independent from both the USSR and the USA (and as he considered the UK as the pawn of the USA and not reliable in their commitment to Europe, he was opposed to them entering the EU). A fun fact was that it was also a incidentally a smart move economically, even if those US military bases closings were hurting the towns they were in: because of the Mansfield agreements around precisely 1966, Germany which still had US bases was giving more and more money as part of participating to the defense of Germany (2 billions $ in the year 1971 alone for example). This is quite like what president Trump tried to reinstate very recently by presenting a bill to Angela Merkel, but Germany now is not the same as West Germany in 1966.
You are comparing apples and oranges though. NATO is a purely military alliance. It has no control over the non-military affairs of member states, and little or no effect on the day-to-day lives of member states' citizens. The EU, on the other hand, acts very much like a central government for its members and exerts a lot of pressure on them to make them comply with its policies. That's why I compared it to empires.
I wonder if the "desire for independence" is simply born out of the usual ingroup/outgroup dynamics - convince people they're being ruled by an outgroup, and suddenly they want to be independent.
The problem with this being that group borders are petty flexible and easily manipulated.
>The problem with this being that group borders are petty flexible and easily manipulated.
Not that flexible -- it takes long, historical processes to change them.
People were living within the same "unified" culture, state mandated et al, forced to be together in USSR and Yugoslavia for 50 to 80 years -- and yet those states exploded into multiple national countries as soon as they had the chance.
Some borders are organic (based on culture, shared history, geographical boundaries etc) and some are not (based on colonial rules drawing lines in a map which include groups with different cultures which have historically been enemies in the same "country": the British have done this time and again, and is also the most common cause of tension in Africa etc).
The USSR was a re-implementation of the Tsarist Russian empire by another name. The peoples yoked together in the USSR had been absorbed by Russian expansion in the 18th & 19th centuries. Yugoslavia was a variation on the same theme. The north had been part of the Austro Hungarian Empire, and the south part of the Ottoman Empire.
That's what I write. Merely getting people to live together under one "union" doesn't mean it will stick, or that they like it, or that they'll identify with it over their prior and existing identities.
Nor (as happened in both cases) that they wont split on the first chance they get.
Each British homeowner should be independent. A man's house is his castle. The could all be lords of their own empire but band together when needed to fight common enemies. Perhaps they could all group together money to help pay for common services like roads etc.
I had to check your history to see if this is satire.
Since it's not: this is a completely misguided view of human nature. Humans are among the most social of all animals, and our successes and failures have always been a function of our ability to work together. Humans everywhere, and at any time, have created groups held together by a lot more than transactional opportunities.
And even if you were right, and it is our fundamental nature to be lone wolfs, plundering the lesser lords and raping their ladies: the actual overarching feature of humanity is our unique ability to overcome base instincts with reason and morality. And both reason and experience tell us that cooperation is much more successful as a strategy for anything you could possibly desire than the alternatives.
The better question to ask is: Does Britain have identity as a nation?
Various surveys indicates that a lot of people in the UK - across all the constituents parts - see themselves as more English/Welsh/Scottish/Irish than British. Many don't see themselves as British at all (ironically immigrants who have become citizens are far more likely to see themselves as British first than people born here).
The British identity as a single nation is weak and fractured.
Keep in mind that the modern nation state and national identities are barely two centuries old and was largely an artificial construct to begin with, created as part of the romantic nationalism movement, and it has had various degrees of success in different places. In the UK a lot of that identity got built around and tied up in the Empire, and has fractured and gone into decline with the fall of the British Empire.
On top of that, I'd argue that London in many ways does have a distinct culture from the surrounding area. London - especially the centre - is a Labour stronghold in a sea of conservative areas. It voted far more for Remain than the surrounding area, despite a large proportion of the residents of London being unable to vote (seeing as London has a high proportion of non-citizen residents). It's far more immigration friendly, far more multicultural than the surrounding areas.
After the Brexit there has been proposals - some serious, and some not so much - for an independence movement for London. I know some concrete planning has been done. There was real and seething anger in London over the vote - in many areas it was seen as outright betrayal, and evidence that London does not really fit in with most of England. People joked about building a wall around the M25 (freeway circling London).
Now, there's no way there's any sizeable real support for an independent London, but the Brexit vote did plant a seed. We'll see if it grows - if the terms we leave the EU on are bad, and especially if they hit London hard, it very well might start growing. I genuinely think that while it won't get much support, ther likely will be a registered political party arguing for an independent London within the next decade.
Britain is not a nation, it is an island, so the question doesn't really make sense to ask. It's impossible to be English, Welsh or Scottish and not be British; you can't choose geography.
You're being a pedant and intentionally obtuse, so let me be one too: While we often refer to the island as Britain, it's name has been Great Britain for many centuries.
The use of variations of Great Britain for the island dates at least as far back as Ptolemy - the use of variations of Britain alone (without some variation of "Great") quickly fell out of use around that time.
And as I'm sure you're perfectly aware, Britain is equally used to refer to the UK in common parlance. The history of using precursors of Britain (without "Great") to refer to a political entity dates back to the Romans, who started using Britannia to refer to the Roman province.
It was exceedingly clear from context that it was used to refer to the UK rather than the island. When talking about national identity, one also specifically talk about "British", which makes it more natural to use Britain rather than the UK.
Right, this is why there have never been empires, kings, large nations or organized groups that have subsumed smaller groups around them, the United States, Great Britain itself, or any organization of peoples greater than just one lone man standing in a field bellowing 'ME!' at the emptiness.
"Independence" it's not about some lone man bellowing "ME".
It's about like-minded people sharing a common culture (as developed historically up to some point), over a hodge podge of states being united by sheer power or top-down dictum.
Empires and kings ruled thanks to tons of bloodshed and continued vigilance and stomping of revolts.
The "Great Britain" itself is a bad example -- it lost colony after colony due to wars for independence, and even sibling states like England, Ireland and Scotland have either split, or want to split. And of course it took some wars (and a lot of resentment) to bring down the Scottish into the UK's stable for example.
> It's about like-minded people sharing a common culture (as developed historically up to some point)
But it's that "some point" that makes everything wishy washy. If I'm in favour of Scottish independence I cite common Scottish culture. If I'm in favour of the UK I cite the hundreds of years of shared culture. If I'm in favour of the EU I cite decades of shared culture. None of these are wrong, despite being in clear disagreement with each other.
It's just an excuse for people to cite the opinion they already had and make it sound historically relevant. (and of course, has been the reasoning behind anti immigrant sentiment since time immaterial)
>But it's that "some point" that makes everything wishy washy. If I'm in favour of Scottish independence I cite common Scottish culture. If I'm in favour of the UK I cite the hundreds of years of shared culture. If I'm in favour of the EU I cite decades of shared culture. None of these are wrong, despite being in clear disagreement with each other.
Well, it's up to what the majority likes.
Everything is wishy-washy in human affairs -- because opinions differ, people value this or that more etc.
But in the end, it's also people who get, or should get, to decide what they want to do.
Majorities often shift, and depend on other changes. E.g. Brexit probably means the end of the UK as we know it - it substantially increased the odds of Scottish independence, as England is far more right wing, but have been held in check by EU law. It may even mean a unified Ireland, as there's been a solid shift towards the Republican side in Stormont, and even some unionists seem to be disillusioned by how the concerns of Northern Ireland gets ignored at Westminster.
Meanwhile London has demanded more devolved powers (partly because Manchester recently got lots of power devolved). More demands will follow.
The UK has been fracturing since the way it was created, and the cracks are getting deeper and deeper, and Brexit looks set to accelerate that process sharply.
For the avoidance of doubt, as I see this sentiment all over the frickin internet, a united Ireland is a very unlikely outcome of Brexit.
The Good Friday agreement states that the Secretary of State for NI shall call a referendum on the question if he or she believes that it will be passed.
Right now, there is a solid unionist majority in the North. The gains made by Sinn Fein are most likely the result of unionists staying home (the first minister, Arlene Foster was accused of corruption). This will most likely remain the case for the next twenty years.
And even, if by some miracle or amazing confluence of events this occurs, I fear that we would have hardline freedom-fighters blowing crap up in the island for some time afterwards.
Scotland is definitely looking more likely, given the long-standing differences between their social policy and England, but the Spanish veto is always an issue (unless they join after the UK leaves).
> Yes, but what's the alternative? Having countries run on "expert opinion" lest people shift their preferences later?
Requiring super-majorities for large constitutional changes, like most countries do.
> When majorities shift they can always revert course in any case.
Often that is not true. E.g. it is extremely unlikely the UK can ever get the same deal it had if it wishes to rejoin the EU later. Even if it gets offered the same deal, it requires unanimous approval - every single member state can veto.
Everything is wishy-washy. If you don't believe in complete individual sovereignty (no State) or in complete governmnent ownership and control of all production and thought, then you believe there are lines between individual freedom and societal coherence.
So wishy-washy!
It's ALWAYS about the line and where it is. I think sharing a language is an important factor in the ability to share culture and values. So I might put the line closer to the UK than to the EU in your example.
There's nothing that says that "top-down dictum" doesn't work for nation building. Indeed, looking at history, it's the only thing that ever did. From a purely bottom-up approach, your feeling of connection to someone else would be a linear function of distance to them. In such a world, it would be impossible to have a border between two people just a mile from each other, with people on each side speaking different languages.
Indeed, the whole concept of the nation-state was a top-down inventions. And possibly not the best, especially when some borders were famously drawn by British people with too much gin in their blood.
> And of course it took some wars (and a lot of resentment) to bring down the Scottish into the UK's stable for example.
It looks like it's going to take Brexit for Scotland to leave the UK. Politically, Scotland and England have very little in common yet they are handcuffed together by "sheer power of top-down dictum"
